July 19, 1876

  • New York Herald publishes the letter, composed by William Steinway with participation of Charles Tretbar and John C. Freund. In his letter, William Steinway states that the accusations of bribery, “one and all, are as absurd as they are untrue.”
  • In the same issue of New York Herald, the Centennial Exhibition judge George Bristow writes: “I repel the covert charge of having allowed either money or friendship to influence my opinion as infamously and maliciously false, and invite a thorough and most searching investigation of my action as a judge of the Centennial Commission, Group 25. My connection with Group 25 not having ceased, I cannot now answer many of the indirect innuendoes and vague insinuations without violating my duty of the Centennial Commission.”
  • New York World prints an article about the Philadelphia Exhibition: “another piano war of large dimensions […] In any other than a purely fancyful or a purely technical sense the instruments of these makers are probably so nearly alike that nobody but a trained expert could tell the difference. But that is of less consequence to them than popular prestige. One of them, and one only, can by official act be recognized as the pianoforte maker par excellence of America, and it is to this distinction that they have bent all their energies.”